Be Who You Are

Period Pads for Africa

Sophia Camp has a friend in Days for Girls International. When Teagen McClain, San Diego team leader, stopped in last summer, campers sat around the coffee table hand-threading dozens of drawstring bags to hold colorful DfG menstrual kits that are now in the grateful hands of our sisters in Kenya and Malawi, Africa…

Days for Girls has teams all over the world, with local volunteers right here in San Diego who sew at home and meet monthly to cut fabric and assemble kits for traveling aid workers. They pose these important questions: “What if not having sanitary supplies meant DAYS without school, DAYS without income, DAYS without leaving the house? Girls use leaves, mattress stuffing, newspaper, corn husks, rocks, anything they can find…but still miss up to two months of school every year. It turns out this issue is a surprising but instrumental key to social change for women all over the world. The poverty cycle can be broken when girls stay in school.”

All women everywhere have periods, and healthier options for people and planet are readily available for most of us. “From a common sense perspective, the choice to wash and reuse cloth menstrual pads is a simple one, akin to using stainless steel water bottles, cloth shopping bags or rechargeable batteries in lieu of their single-use counterparts.” So say the good people of Lunapads, Canadian makers of both cloth pads and the reusable Diva Cup. There is even a local company OTRgirls that will deliver organic cotton tampons to your door each month!

There are many ways to help. To learn more about Days for Girls please leave a comment in the space below.

Meanwhile we look forward to welcoming Teagen and DfG back to our Sophia Camp next week!